According to Jony Ive, Steve Jobs was exceptional at nurturing this kind of creative environment. He describes it perfectly in this WSJ article [1] from a couple years ago:
> As thoughts grew into ideas, however tentative, however fragile, he recognized that this was hallowed ground. He had such a deep understanding and reverence for the creative process. He understood creating should be afforded rare respect—not only when the ideas were good or the circumstances convenient.
> Ideas are fragile. If they were resolved, they would not be ideas, they would be products. It takes determined effort not to be consumed by the problems of a new idea. Problems are easy to articulate and understand, and they take the oxygen. Steve focused on the actual ideas, however partial and unlikely.
The other part of it is that ideas, as fragile as they are, can blossom and transform if you can get multiple people and multiple different perspectives involved in the early stages. That's why it's so powerful to have this kind of culture on a team; it lifts everyone up.
The problem with polishing the idea into a final draft before sharing it is that — whether or not it's good — it's almost guaranteed to not be as good as it could have been. And, by the time the "final draft" is ready, it's too late to get involved — all the interesting rabbit holes and tangents and possibilities have already been pruned away.
[1]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/jony-ive-steve-jobs-memories-10...
The problem you describe is the part that is directly addressed by psychological safety. If you can provide a wrong answer and have people critique it but without ridicule, then you have a “safe” environment where people are comfortable to provide solutions without certainty on their optimality.
The point is that participants feel safe challenging an idea.
